Transport for London Settlement (16)

Elly Baker: Can you confirm that the 1 June 2021 TfL Funding Settlement required you to freeze the pay of front-line transport workers? What would be the cost to TfL of raising their pay by inflation in 2021/22?

The Mayor: As stated in paragraph 28 of the Settlement Letter, the Government expects us to freeze pay in line with its public sector pay pause (announced in November 2020) while Transport for London (TfL) is in receipt of Government funding.
All pre-existing pay deals agreed through TfLs collective bargaining processes (London Underground and Dial-a-Ride) will be honored. These agreements cover the majority of front-line operational employees in London Underground and Dial-a Ride and therefore any uplifts to pay specified in these agreements will continue to be made during the period of the funding settlement.
There are a small number of front-line operational employees in Surface Transport who are not covered by a pre-existing pay settlement. If an increase in line with inflation (based on the RPI figure for February 2021) was applied to these employees the additional cost would be £353,416, including employers NI and pension this would be £519,875. However, any increases to base pay outside of a pre-existing pay deal would not be compliant with the terms of the funding agreement.

Silvertown Tunnel Monitoring

Elly Baker: According to TfL’s Programmes and Investment Committee in May 2021 “Contracts have also been placed for transport and traffic, socio-economic and environmental monitoring, which are part of our Development Consent Order obligations. Environmental monitoring has started, with the others planned to start later this year.” Please provide an update on what monitoring has started and when the results will be made public?

The Mayor: Transport for London (TfL) is developing a comprehensive monitoring programme to ensure the effects of the Silvertown Tunnel scheme are fully understood. Baseline air quality monitoring commenced in December 2020 and is further described in my response to question 2021/2241.
TfL’s proposals for traffic and socio-economic monitoring were shared with the Silvertown Tunnel Implementation Group (STIG) in May 2021. The traffic monitoring and primary research in connection with the socio-economic monitoring is expected to commence by the end of 2021.
Data from the three continuous air quality monitoring stations can be accessed from the London Air Quality Network website here: https://www.londonair.org.uk/. Data from the air quality diffusion tubes is expected to be available from spring 2022.
TfL is fully committed to publishing all other relevant data as and when it’s available throughout the monitoring period. The STIG papers set out a programme for when different aspects of this work are expected to take place, and the papers are available on TfL’s website here: https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/silvertown-tunnel-implementation-group